In the Terezín Memorial, we were watched daily by A State Security officer
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Karel Rožec was born on 10 December 1943 in Přestavlky near Roudnice nad Labem as the eldest of three boys into the family of Růžena and Václav Rožec. After the war, the family was given a small, twelve-hectare farm in Travčice near Terezín. Around 1951, it was clear that the parents would have to join a unified agricultural cooperative (JZD), and in January of the following year, the JZD took away all their cattle. The stables on Rožec’s farm remained empty, and the family was allowed to keep only a hectare of land for their own use. In 1958, when the witness graduated from primary school, a decree was issued that the children coming out had to go to work in agriculture. In order to avoid a career as a worker in the JZD, he began to study horticulture at the apprenticeship school in Litoměřice. He did well, and after a year he was allowed to transfer to study horticulture at the Secondary School of Horticulture in Děčín-Libverda. There, thanks to his Czech professor, he became interested in literature and foreign languages. In 1965 he enlisted in the motorized artillery regiment in Louny. After the war he worked as a master of vocational training at the Litoměřice school. In 1969 he expressed his open opposition to the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops. He soon had to leave the apprenticeship. For a long time he was unable to find a decent job and supported himself on a part-time basis. In 1983, thanks to his knowledge of foreign languages, he joined the Memorial of National Suffering in Terezín as a guide. Hundreds of people from abroad were already heading to Terezín under deep socialism, so the State Security (StB) reserved a special worker for the Memorial. One SS officer harassed the staff and visitors and it was he who eventually forced Karel Rožec to leave the Memorial. He returned to it after the Velvet Revolution and continued to work there part-time after his retirement. The witness never got married, has no children and his great passions include books and travelling. In 2024 he was living in Litoměřice.
